Product Innovation and Survival in a High-Tech Industry

We investigate the relationship between product innovation and firm survival for a sample of 121 firms in a high-tech industry. We find that location near the technological frontier is an important determinant of firm survival. Firms that are located near the frontier are also more likely to be acquired than to exit by liquidation if they cannot survive as free-standing enterprises. This suggests that product location in the technology space acts as a signal of firm quality. Greater R&D efforts increase the probability of surviving; in the event that the firm does exit, however, its R&D efforts do not significantly influence whether it exits via acquisition or exits via liquidation.     

Industrial New Product Launch Strategies and Product Development Performance

Just as reporters must answer a few fundamental questions in every story they write, decision-makers in the new product development (NPD) process must address five key issues: what to launch, where to launch, when to launch, why to launch, and how to launch. These decisions involve significant commitments of time, money, and resources. They also go a long way toward determining the success or failure of any new product. Deeper insight into the tradeoffs these decisions involve may help to increase the likelihood of success for product launch efforts. Erik Jan Hultink, Abbie Griffin, Susan Hart, and Henry Robben present the results of a study that examines the interplay between these product launch decisions and NPD performance. Noting that previous launch studies focus primarily on the tactical decisions (that is, how to launch) rather than on the strategic decisions (what, where, when, and why to launch), they explore not only which decisions are important to success, but also the associations between the two sets of decisions. Because the strategic launch decisions made early in the NPD process affect the tactical decisions made later in the process, their study emphasizes the importance of launch consistency—that is, the alignment of the strategic and tactical decisions made throughout the process. The survey respondents—managers from marketing, product development, or general management in U.K. firms—provided information about 221 industrial new products launched during the previous five years. The responses identify associations between various sets of strategic and tactical decisions. That is, the responses suggest that the strategic decisions managers make regarding product innovativeness, market targeting, the number of competitors, and whether the product is marketing- or technology-driven are associated with subsequent tactical decisions regarding branding, distribution expenditure and intensity, and pricing. The study also suggests that different sets of launch decisions have differing effects on performance of industrial new products. In this study, the greatest success was enjoyed by a small group of respondents categorized as Niche Innovators. Their launch strategy involves a niche focus, targeting innovative products into markets with few competitors. Tactical decisions made by this group include exclusive distribution, a skimming pricing strategy, and a broad product assortment.     

Strategies of Innovation and Imitation of Product Languages*

Nowadays, design is recognized as a strategic resource. Customers are increasingly paying attention to the aesthetic, symbolic, and emotional value of products, a value that is conveyed by the design language—that is, the combination of signs (e.g., form, colors, materials) that gives meaning to a product. As a consequence firms are devoting increasing efforts to define a proper strategy for the design language of their products. An empirical analysis was conducted on the product language strategies in the Italian furniture industry; in particular, the present article explores the relationship between innovation and variety of product languages. Companies are usually faced by two major strategic decisions. The first one concerns the innovation of product languages: To what extent should a firm proactively propose new design languages or, rather, should adopt a reactive strategy by rapidly adopting new languages as they emerge in the market? The second decision concerns the variety and heterogeneity of languages in their product range. Should a firm propose a single product language to communicate a precise identity, or should it explore different product languages? Of course, the two strategic decisions—innovativeness and variety of product languages—are closed connected. Analyzing more than 2.000 products launched by 210 firms, the present article explores how the variety of product languages is approached in the strategy of innovators and imitators. The empirical results illustrate an inverse relationship between innovativeness and heterogeneity of product signs and languages. Contrary to what is expected, innovators have lower heterogeneity of product languages. They tend to be strongly proactive and limit experimentations of new languages in the market. Imitators, instead—which would be expected to have low variety since they can invest only in languages that have been proven successful in the market—tend on the contrary to have higher product variety. Eventually, by having lower investments in research on trends of sociocultural models, they miss the capability to interpret the complex evolution of products signs and languages in the market. Strategic decisions on innovativeness and variety of product languages are therefore interrelated; counterintuitively companies should carefully analyze these decisions jointly.     

Strategies of Product and Process Innovation: A Loglinear Analysis

Utterback and Abernathy (1975) developed a dynamic innovation model to explain the patterns of product and process innovation and to show which types of innovation would be most strategically appropriate for firms with particular objectives. In this paper the relation-ships between type and/or source of innovation and a number of firm-characteristic variables are examined. Loglinear regression is employed to determine the extent of the postulated relationships in a set of actual industry data on product innovation. The loglinear model provided results which were highly consistent with predictions made on the basis of previous research into product and process innovation.     

Changing Strategies and Tactics for New Product Development

There has been a considerable amount of effort and writing devoted to improving the new product development process during the last two decades. Although there have been some surprises in this literature and in reports from the field on how to manage this complex business process, we now have a good view of the state-of-the-art practices that work and do not work to accelerate commercial success of new ventures. We know much less about how firms change their strategies for new product development.
In this article, we report on a study to investigate how companies change the way they originate and develop new products in manufacturing. We made no prior assumptions about what best practices might be for changing the direction of the new product development process, but we reasonably were sure there would be trends in how companies were attempting to create this strategic change. Even though one size does not fit all, there were significant trends in our findings.
We studied eight manufacturing firms using in-depth, open-ended interviews and were surprised to find that most of these companies are beginning to develop products that are new to the firm, industry, and the world (nearly half, or 10 of 21 new product projects), where they had not been eager for radical change in the past. These newer products likely are to be driven by a combination of market and technology forces, with general requirements being directed by internal forces: middle and top management. Results also indicate significantly that being able to marshal resources and capabilities is easier if change is less demanding and less radical, but when middle managers are driving the conversion of general requirements into specifications, resource issues have yet to be resolved. Implications of these findings are discussed for companies aspiring to change the entire process of new product development in their firms based on these significant results.     

中国建筑业技术创新面临的问题与创新战略

通过对中国建筑业技术进步的研究,发现建筑业研发投入不足且缺乏战略性、成果转化能力薄弱、创新阻力较大、企业创新能力较弱、合作创新网络未普遍形成、缺乏国际化的技术标准与技术扩散战略指导等,是我国建筑业技术创新面临的主要问题;明确了未来5年我国建筑业科技投入与产出、重点发展的技术领域、建设创新型建筑业等战略目标;提出了实现战略目标的总体思路和建议,包括构建中国建筑业科技政策研究的科学路径、改进和完善建筑业科技与创新政策、增进创新体系中相关方的合作伙伴关系、营造健康的创新文化与创新环境、开展自下而上的制度创新和建筑技术标准国际化活动等。     

Social Networks for Innovation and New Product Development

In this article we first provide a brief introduction into social network analysis, focusing on the measures and approaches that are used in the empirical contributions in this special issue. Second, we discuss the role of social networks in new product development. Social networks are inherently multilevel; we consider four “levels”: networks inside a firm, networks that cross firm boundaries, networks between firms, and networks that reside outside of the firm. Third, we discuss these four levels and highlight some of the extant research. We summarize and position the eight papers in this special issue along these four levels. Together, we argue, these papers provide an interesting coverage of this burgeoning field.     

Strategic Partnerships in New Product Development: an Italian Case Study

This article provides some revealing insights into what a leading Italian firm operating in markets where innovation is a focal point of competition has learned about partnering with suppliers in the new products development process. To succeed in a rapidly changing environment, the firm promoted and sustained tightly linked, integrated supplier relationships. This provided one key element of a shorter product cycle, led to better products, and increased the firm's ability to compete. Andrea Bonaccorsi and Andrea Lipparini explore why partnering is critical for new product success. Finally, they highlight the steps that should be taken to make this relationship a productive one.     

航天科技工业改革发展中的几个关系问题

目前，我国航天科技工业正处于改革发展的关键时期，亦是战略机遇期，面临着新的形势，必然有新的问题、新的矛盾。未来改革与发展的核心是贯彻落实科学发展观，切实做到以人为本，实现全面、协调、可持续发展。笔者认为，处理好若干关系对贯彻落实科学发展观是至关重要的。     

New Product Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Pooling Network Resources

Pharmaceutical innovation increasingly involves some pooling of resources of finance, equity, technology, information, and intellectual property between pharmaceutical companies and other organizations. The organizations and their exchanges constitute a network which can be regarded as a growing store of these varied resources preferentially accessible to network members. D. Jane Bower examines some network effects in management decision making in Ciba-Geigy (Switzerland) and Elan Corporation (Ireland). She concludes that participation in a common network has enabled these firms to access a pool of resources of knowledge, experience, and finance. This pool has been generated by past exchanges among network members, including providers of finance, and has increased the network's collective reservoir of knowledge.     

加快服务业发展的对策

加快服务业发展对扩大就业、优化经济结构、转变经济增长方式、提高产业竞争力具有十分重要的意义。本文提出了加快服务业发展的一些对策建议。     

Integrating Product Innovation and Market Development to Strengthen Long-Term Planning

The steel industries of Europe and the United States are among the worst casualties of the industrial turmoil that has shaken the economic order during the past ten years, Other heavy manufacturing industries can claim similar suffering. In this article, Bela Gold draws on his long years of experience in studying the technology, productivity, and competitive structure of such industries. He suggests that traditional planning approaches won't haul heavy industry onto a winning track. A new long-term approach, based on an integration of product innovation and market development, is needed to meet the changing pressures these industries are facing.     

程序公平对新产品开发成功的影响——跨职能整合的中介作用

本文通过对中外汽车合资企业的实地调研,提出将程序公平引入现有关于跨职能整合与新产品开发成功的模型中,并进一步提出跨职能整合在合资企业程序公平与新产品开发成功关系中的中介作用。通过对获取数据的分析,发现合资企业程序公平不仅可以直接影响合资企业的新产品开发成功,而且也可以通过跨职能整合间接影响新产品开发成功,而跨职能整合在程序公平与新产品开发成功关系中起中介作用。     

Making Up Is Hard to Do: Knowledge Acquisition Strategies and the Nature of New Product Innovation

Innovation creates significant challenges for firms in high‐technology industries. This article examines how the use of external knowledge acquired from mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and joint ventures (JVs) influence the nature of innovative competence in the global pharmaceutical industry. We create a unique database on never‐before approved products that measure the scientific merit of new, exploratory product innovations, ranging from radical to incremental. We then follow their market success by recording the number of new exploitative product innovations that stem from these product innovations and that are later approved and subsequently marketed. Using a large data set spanning a 15‐year period, we find that firms were able to “make up” for their lack of exploitation or exploration innovative capabilities through the use of M&As and JVs. These external knowledge acquisition strategies were found to overcome internal processes that otherwise could cause firms to overemphasize exploitation over exploration and vice versa. Our findings suggest that acquiring external knowledge via M&As is associated with diminished exploratory product innovation, while assimilating external knowledge sourced from JVs is associated with a reduction in new exploitative product innovation.     

大型煤炭集团现代物流产业创新与发展

以冀中能源国际物流集团为例,从创新发展理念、谋划产业布局和目标、创新现代物流商业模式等多个方面阐述了新形势下大型煤炭集团建设现代物流产业的主要做法,以期为煤炭企业加快转型发展提供思路。     

Creativity Workshops in Product Innovation

The process of creative thinking has long been a concern of both researchers and managers alike. Recently, the business press has begun to address a variety of approaches being taken to enhance creativity. One of the current structures which incorporates the use of a variety of specific techniques is the Creativity Workshop. It structures a collective group effort designed to solve a complex problem. Horst Geshka has led a number of Creativity Workshops and has summarized his experiences for the growing number of managers who recognize the importance of giving special attention to the process of creative thinking.